It’s one of those million dollar questions.

The virality on the web seems to be an unpredictable and uncontrollable process, and in part it certainly is, but not everything is left to chance.

Some scientific studies suggest that there is a recurring element that triggers the viral spread, and it is the ability of arousing emotions.

A Recent Study about Viral Content

A recent study, published in Computers in Human Behavior just dealt with this topic.

The researchers carried out a test on a sample of 256 people.

For each participant was shown a video, randomly chosen from a selection covering the whole spectrum of emotions.

Some have seen cute and funny videos that have become popular on YouTube, while others have watched videos that caused anger, astonishment or indignation, while others have watched neutral videos, as for instance a tutorial for weaving baskets.

Later they were asked if they would like to share the just watched video with someone else.

Those who had seen funny videos were much more likely to respond “yes.”

Even those who had felt anger or disgust was more inclined to share the experience than those who had watched the neutral video.

In short, the experiment showed that the content that convey positive emotions are more effective than those that elicit negative emotions.

But an emotional reaction, positive or negative, still works better than simple neutrality.

Emotional Contagion

Scientists have attributed this behavior to the phenomenon better known as “emotional contagion“.

It is the mechanism by which, when we come into contact with a person who expresses certain emotions, we tend to being influenced.

In short, we feel feel empathy and we likely experience the same emotions.

According to experts, this is what happens, even if indirectly, when we receive a video shared by someone.

There is this guy from Sweden, who run one of the most popular You Tube channel : PewDiePie, with more than 25 million subscribers, at the moment. 

It’s a channel about funny videos while he’s playing games. His motto is:

“I’m just a guy from Sweden who likes to laugh and make other people laugh.”

And it seem really working!

Conclusion

You can convince your friends to share your content (images, articles, or videos), but only the strength of your content can convince your friends to share it.

Why would people want to spread your content?

People share things when they feel emotions.

Some moods propagate better than others.

Contagious emotions : wonder, excitement, fun , anger, anxiety.

Not contagious emotions : contentment, sadness.

But emotions alone are not enough to trigger the virality.

You need to have a real marketing plan.

Your content must be packaged in a certain way, published at the appropriate time, with correct description and SEO, etc.

But above all you need to reach the right people!

If your content manages to arrive to the major influencers (on blogs and social networks) and reach their audience, the you’re done.

This is one of the reasons you need to build relationships online and it’s important to network with people within your niche.

What do you think?

Have you ever produced viral content?

Please let me know what you think in the comments below, thanks!

In this post I’ll not teach you that your post must be great, ready for social sharing, keyword optimized and helpful for readers. It’s a must (you know it, am I right?).

I’ll reveal you some tips and tricks which best of famous bloggers do to make their posts viral.

And viral for me means that your post will be linked, shared, twitted and liked.

How to Make Viral Post

1.     Forget about Topic

Yes, you read it correctly. In most cases topic of your post doesn’t matter. Everyone is researching web to try finding great topic(s). A lot of people are monitoring Google Alerts, other blogs, portals and newsletters. But in most cases it doesn’t work… Of course if your blog is about blogging, your viral post must be also about blogging. On the other hands – old topics don’t go viral…

2.     Make Your Post as a Top List

People like to read (and share) lists. I’m almost sure that for most of you Top XX list is the best post to read. And remember that “Top 10” list is the best list (better than Top 1, Top 3, Top 5, Top 7, Top 20, Top 50, even Top 100). You can read more about lists in this guest post: 10 Blogging Tips for an Irresistible List Post written by Erik Emanuelli

3.     Prepare How To…

Another great type of post which has a lot of chances to goes viral is a tutorial. Of course title of the tutorial may not begin with “How to”, but people like it and search for “How tos“ in search engines… Some examples of it you can find below

• How to Get Likes on Facebook
• How to Write an Article in Less Than One Hour
• How to Stop Spam in Comments

4.     Make Interviews

Interviews are also very good candidates for viral marketing. But you must interview someone very popular in your niche. Publish on your blog real interview with Darren Rowse or Daniel Scocco. You will see viral nature of such posts…

5.     Make a Contest on Your Blog

Competition is great If you want to have great and compelling contest – invest some money into it. I know that it costs a lot, but try to connect with some other bloggers – maybe they want to sponsor some of your awards?

6.     Put some Life into Your Post

You can make it by adding some videos, pictures, infographics, memes and graphics to your post. So forget about text alone. If you want more tips in this area, please read “How To Attract Your Blog Posts – 20 Tips for Normal People”

7.     Make Controversial Title

It’s one of the most important things in going viral. Of course your post must be related with your headline. Remember that poor title may ruin your great post…

Please look at following titles:

Google sucks

Matt Cutts reveals secrets about Google

I’m the Best Blogger of the Year

Devil’s Guide to Online Marketing

Do you like it? Would you click it to see what’s inside?

8.     Length of Your Post Matters

It’s very individual. Sometimes very long post goes viral, sometimes not. I saw some posts which length was about 100 words. And they got thousands of likes, tweets and shares. So my proposition to you is – test it. You must try writing posts with different length. And you will see what works for you…

9.     Who is Behind the Blog…

Okay. Probably you make a lot of proposed things from this list. And nothing happened. Why? Because you aren’t famous blogger and your network is too small…

Yes, unfortunately it’s a true. Till you aren’t blogger from A-list, your best post has very little chance to goes viral… So if you want to have viral post – write guest post with killer content for blogs like ProBlogger, CopyBlogger or DailyBlogTips. They have big and fanatic audience.

Believe me; Author name matters and is one of the most important things…

10.Promote Your Post Like a Crazy…

This tip is in case you don’t want to write for someone else (but even in guest blogging it also helps). So you must promote your post as a crazy. That means;

• ask your readers and followers to link to it
• make a lot comments on other blogs (with backlinks to your post)
• link to your post on your Facebook page, Pinterest, LinkedIn profile, Twitter and other social networks

If you want more ways how to promote your post, you may be interested in reading following tips:

How to Promote Your Blog

35+ Traffic and SEO Tips & Articles from Bloggers

Bonus tip – Don’t Give Up!

Even best post on the best blog may not go viral. It is normal that planned link baits will not work But you must try. Prepare one, two, ten and even 20 great and killer posts. Maybe one of them will get thousands of links and shares

And what are your tips? Do you have recipe for viral post? Please share your experience and knowledge with us in the comments below. And of course share this post with others